Page 27 of Four of Hearts

‘Off you go, lad,’ said Arthur, coming over to see Harry off, then he leaned in and whispered, ‘You’ll be fine, I promise!’

Harry felt a gentle shove in the small of his back, then he was outside, the door was closed behind him, and Matt had stepped to one side to allow him past.

‘Ready for this, Harry?’ Matt asked.

‘No,’ replied Harry.

‘Excellent!’ Matt laughed, and with that, they climbed into the minibus and were on their way to the Tan Hill Inn.

ELEVEN

‘Protect the King!’

The bellow of these three words, for the umpteenth time that evening, had Harry wondering if he was in a coma somewhere, and that what he was experiencing was actually some bizarre fever dream brought on by life-changing injuries, and an awful lot of drugs. A small part of him hoped that was very much the case.

Everyone in the party raced over from wherever they were in the pub, and surrounded Harry.

Harry, very full of food and beer, was sitting in a chair which Dave had badly, but enthusiastically, decorated to look like a throne. This had involved a few rolls of tin foil, various scrag ends of tinsel, and a considerable amount of sticky tape.

Harry wasn’t allowed to move from the throne at all, unless he needed to go to the toilet. And should the call of nature need answering, which it had a number of times due to the seemingly magic self-filling pint glass on the table, he had to be escorted there under armed guard, with Merlin at the front casting spells. The spells were little more than Matt blowing bubbles across the pub, from a little pot of soapy mixture, and yelling out words he’d invented which he thought sounded magical. Theydidn’t. In many ways, they made him sound like he was speaking backwards.

The rest of the patrons in the pub had been very forgiving of the antics, with many, much to Harry’s surprise, joining in. He’d been bought drinks, been hugged and offered congratulations by so many people who he’d never met before, that he was rather dizzy, and not just from the booze. There was only so much social interaction he could handle, and right now he was starting to feel like he’d had a whole life’s worth of it in one evening. Still, Ben was having a riot, he thought.

Ben, who was also dressed like King Arthur, just in different colours, was also sat in an embarrassment of a throne, and the group would take it in turns to protect one or the other of their kings. The various reasons for calling out the charge had been decided upon by Matt and duly explained when they’d all sat down on first arriving at the pub.

‘It’s quite simple,’ he’d said. ‘There are three reasons any one of us can call out ‘Protect the King’, and thus surround either Ben or Harry, or both. One, someone calls either Ben or Harry by their name instead ofMy Liege, orMy King. Two, Harry or Ben, forgetting that they’re kings and we’re here to do their bidding, get up from the chair for whatever reason, be that to visit the bar, go to the toilet, whatever really. The third reason is the easiest of all: if anyone’s phone rings. Is that all clear?’

Everyone had understood, and with such rules in place, Harry had expected to get through the night without suffering too much in the way of having everyone rush to surround him. He could not have been more wrong. Drinks had been spilled, food knocked off plates, and a number of the attendees were for sure going to wake up the following day with bruises. Not that it had mattered. In the end, Harry had enjoyed himself, mostly because of the joy he’d seen on Ben’s face.

Meal over, they’d been placed together at the head of the table, rather than opposite ends, and had then been charged with carrying out their Kingly Duties. In turn, everyone had stood in front of them to pledge their allegiance, and to read a poem they’d each written themselves, on a scroll, to say how lucky they were to live under the rule of the Arthurs, how they wished the kings well, and so on. None of the poems had been good. Dave’s had been especially bad, with so many innuendoes Harry had run out of fingers counting them.

Things had been on the cusp of quietening down, with everyone having had their fill of Yorkshire puddings, beef, gravy, and beer, when a phone call came in. Not to Harry’s phone, but Ben’s.

The roar of ‘Protect the King!’ erupted from all around the table as everyone was on their feet and racing to surround Ben and Harry. It was only then, once surrounded, that Harry could see concern on Ben’s face.

‘It’s Liz,’ he said. ‘She shouldn’t be calling me, should she? Not tonight with her on her and Grace’s hen do, and us doing this.’

Harry gave Ben’s thigh a pat.

‘It’ll be nowt,’ he said, laughing on hearing the Yorkshire in his words, now, as well as his tone, thanks to the beer he’d consumed. ‘Answer it. She’s probably drunk and just wants to say hello, check you’re having fun, that kind of thing.’

Ben lifted his phone to his ear.

For a second or two, he said nothing, then he turned to stare at Harry, all colour gone from his face.

‘What’s wrong?’

Harry didn’t so much sober up as dump all the alcohol from his system in one furnace-like burn.

Ben tried to speak, couldn’t.

‘Someone’s ...’

‘Someone’s what, Ben?’

‘They’ve ... They’ve kid?—’

Ben’s voice broke. Around them everyone was still cheering and laughing and drinking, and then cheering some more. It really had been that kind of night.